Jorge Luis Borges (17 page)
Authors: Jorge Luis Borges
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
But why do you say that you’d like us to forget you?
BORGES:
Because it’s unimportant.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
What’s a typical day for you?
BORGES:
Well, when I’m lucky, I’m talking to you here, but I don’t get lucky every day.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Well, thank you. You don’t have to say that.
BORGES:
Well, I sleep a siesta.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
How many hours?
BORGES:
No, for me a long siesta is forty minutes, because I take a long time to get to sleep. I find it very difficult; sometimes I even have to take a pill.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Do you have insomnia?
BORGES:
Yes, insomnia visits me quite often. There’s a lovely verse by Rosetti: “Sleepless, with cold commemorative eyes …”
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And what do you do when you have insomnia?
BORGES:
I try not to think about getting to sleep. I try to think up a plot or polish a verse.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Do you remember what you thought about the next day?
BORGES:
No, but I managed to get to sleep, which is the important thing. No, happily I don’t remember the projects of my insomnia. But I am always writing verses or prose, I’m always polishing verses or putting together plots for stories because if I didn’t, I’d get very bored. Xul Solar
25
once said to me that he wouldn’t mind spending a year in prison. “In the company of your cellmates?” “No,” he said, “a year in a cell on my own.” “Ah well, me too, because spending a year with criminals sounds horrible.” I don’t think it would be so bad, a blind person is alone; blindness is a form of solitude … old age too.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
What time do you get up in the morning?
BORGES:
They come to wake me at nine but I’m already awake, and I try to get to sleep when I hear the Torre de los Ingleses
26
strike eleven. But sometimes I don’t, sometimes I come home late and it strikes twelve and I’m disoriented. Generally I go to bed at eleven.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And the cat?
BORGES:
The cat died.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
The cat died? When did it die?
BORGES:
About a month ago, I think. I think it was twelve and that’s old for a cat. I didn’t know it, but apparently that’s a good life for a cat.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And do you miss it?
BORGES:
Yes, sometimes, and sometimes not. I look for it and then remember that it’s died.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
So I should get you a little cat?
BORGES:
I don’t know. I’d have to ask because cats can be a lot of work and as they die, it can be hard can’t it? And you’d look at it as though it were the previous cat but it would be a little different, as though it were dressed up, so I’d have to ask, but thank you very much in any case.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
All the popularity you’ve earned over the years.
BORGES:
It’s strange isn’t it? But it will pass.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Why should it pass if it’s growing all the
time? How does it feel? When I walk down the street with you, it causes more fuss than with Miguel Angél Solá!
BORGES:
Who’s Miguel Ángel Solá? Now, Émile Zola, I know that name …
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Miguel Ángel Solá is an actor … With you people stand back, amazed, it’s an expression of …
BORGES:
Well, if I were with Émile Zola that would be because he’s dead; it would be an amazing sight. Walking with Émile Zola!
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And you’re growing ever more popular, your wit, your genius …
BORGES:
What can I do? And yet I’m still published, which should put people off shouldn’t it? This year, I’m directing a collection of one hundred books, I wanted to call it the Marco Polo Library, but the publisher chose a more vague title, Personal Library, so that’s what it’s called. I’m choosing them with María Kodama, and writing the prologues.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
A good thing is happening that I want to tell you about: children are learning about you because of the advertisement on television. When I told my daughter that I was going to interview Jorge Luis Borges, she said to me: “The man who’s writing all the books?”
BORGES:
Well, I’m not writing them, they’re books by great writers; a Personal Library.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
No, I know, but it means young people already know about you.
BORGES:
Well, Bioy told me a story today; he was with a Spanish woman at his home, and a package of books arrived from the printers: fifty copies. She looked at it and he said, “Yes, I wrote them.” So she opened the package and saw that they were fifty copies of the same book and said to him “There’s been a mistake! They’re all the same!” She was very disappointed; she was expecting fifty different books! As they were all the same, she must have said to herself “
Caramba
, this man’s an impostor!
Caramba
, what a poseur!” “Yes,” he said to me, “I reproached myself; just one book!” [
Laughing
.] It would seem that she knew nothing about editions, of course. And especially that she was unfamiliar with the concept of fifty first editions.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Do you live on a pension?
BORGES:
Yes, I have two pensions: I was the director of the National Library, and I resigned when I heard that he had come back to power. Well, we know the story don’t we? He was called …
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Say it! Say it!
BORGES:
What they call Cangallo now.
27
That’s it, the man who’s now known as Cangallo. I left because I couldn’t in good conscience serve him, it would be ridiculous. And then I was an English literature professor and I let go of my anger, and I have two pensions. Books don’t make enough to live on in this country; a friend of mine sadly resigned himself to writing pornography, he tried to live off the dirty words he learned in third grade, to writing about the sexual act, and he was very melancholy. Then it turned out that even these universal studies weren’t enough to make him prosperous and he’s still poor. Because pornography isn’t enough, obscenity isn’t enough to maintain oneself. Apparently not. And that means that nothing will be enough.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
No?
BORGES:
Well, it seems that nothing is enough; everything is so difficult these days.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Borges, you say that you don’t read the newspapers and yet you know about everything that goes on in politics because you offer opinions on everything.
BORGES:
Well, my friends keep me informed, but I have never read a newspaper in my life. I realized that something that lasts a day can’t be very important, can it? They call them dailies, which doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Before, you didn’t get involved in politics …
BORGES:
And I still don’t, I don’t belong to any party.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And yet your opinions can be harsh …
BORGES:
Yes, but for ethical reasons, not political ones. When I was young I started out as a Communist, around 1918, committed to universal brotherhood, the absence of borders, friendship between all men. And then, who knows why, I became a Radical, I was a Conservative, and now I don’t belong to any party.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
But never a Peronist.
BORGES:
Well, I like to think that I’m a gentleman, a decent person.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
So you’re still a committed anti-Peronist. I thought from some of the statements you’ve made that you’d forgiven a little.
BORGES:
Forgotten, not forgiven. Forgetting is the only form of forgiveness, it’s the only vengeance and the only
punishment too. Because if my counterpart sees that I’m still thinking about them, in some ways I become their slave, and if I forget them I don’t. I think that forgiveness and vengeance are two words for the same substance, which is oblivion. But one does not forget a wrong easily.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And have you forgotten?
BORGES:
Well, I think of my mother, who was in prison for a month, my sister too, apart from what happened to me. They were imprisoned for a month and a day and if I don’t think about that, I think about how they’ve debased the country as well as ransacking it.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Do you know that there are writers who charge for interviews? You’re someone …
BORGES:
Well, I really have no idea how much you’re going to pay me.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
[
Laughing
.] We can talk about that later.
BORGES:
I think nothing, don’t you? Let’s set it at zero then, is zero fine with you?
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Of course, zero. Silvia Bullrich
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charges in dollars.
BORGES:
Well, Silvia Bullrich is a rich woman and I’m a poor man. It’s strange that rich people are usually miserly and often greedy too. Poor people aren’t, the poor are free with their generosity. Poor people are generous, rich people aren’t. My father used to say to me that when one inherits a fortune, they inherit the conditions that led to making that fortune, meaning that rich people inherit wealth and the qualities of miserliness and greed, which it maybe requires.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
That’s wonderful, you mean that one can’t be rich without stealing from someone?
BORGES:
I think so, property is originally a theft.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Property is theft?
BORGES:
The problem is that you and I aren’t Guaraní Indians or Charrua Indians, we have no right to be here, of course.
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
Working hard …
BORGES:
Working hard …
LÓPEZ LECUBE:
And at zero, as you just said.
BORGES:
Many thanks.
3
A slang word for “frustration” or “anger.”
4
Buenos Aires slang invented primarily by tango writers and singers in Buenos Aires in the first half of the twentieth century.
5
Salta is a province in northern Argentina.
6
From Corrientes, another province in Argentina.
7
Borges says “tiniebla” while the poem actually reads “penumbra.”
8
In 1874, Bartolomé Mitre, a prominent liberal general and politician, led a short-lived revolution that ended with defeat in the battle of La Verde and surrender of his army on December 3, 1874.
9
Leopoldo Lugones (1874–1938), Argentine poet.
10
Paul-François Groussac (1848–1929), Franco-Argentine writer, historian and literary critic.
11
Arturo Capdevila (1889–1967), Argentine poet and writer.
12
Baldomero Fernández Moreno (1886–1950), Argentine poet.
13
The pen name of Pedro Bonifacio Palacios (1854–1917), Argentine poet and doctor.
14
“I was driven delirious with hunger for many days and many nights I couldn’t sleep for the cold / to defend God from reproach for human hunger and his cold nights.”
15
The verse actually reads: “
(Si los lacedemonios al combate iban a son de trompa o son de flauta / si en diez mil dracmas cotizó Corinto la noche de Lais, la cortesana.)
” “(If the Laconians sallied forth into combat to the rhythm of the horn or the flute / if Lais, the courtesan, priced Corinth at ten thousand drachmas.)”
16
Human rights groups who campaigned for the release of political prisoners and the end to torture and killings during the dictatorship.
17
Alicia Moreau de Justo (1885–1986), Argentine politician and one of the country’s first female doctors.
18
A neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
19
“Compadrito” is a
lunfardo
term for “street-kid” or “scoundrel.”
20
A wealthy neighborhood in Buenos Aires with a famous cemetery.
21
Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877), Argentine dictator.
22
The Unitarian Party was a liberal political party, opposed throughout the nineteenth century by the Federal party.
23
Between 1843 and 1851, Montevideo was put under siege by the Blanco party led by General Manuel Oribe.
24
Retiro is a train station and railway terminal in Buenos Aires.
25
Xul Solar (1887–1963), Argentine artist.
26
A clock tower in Retiro, Buenos Aires. It was a gift to Argentina from the British government to celebrate the nation’s centenary.
27
Borges is referring to the former Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón (1895–1974), whose government he fiercely opposed in the 1940s and ’50s. In 1973, Perón returned from exile in Spain, to take control of the government once more and Borges resigned his post at the National Library. Cangallo is a major street in Buenos Aires that was renamed Juan Domingo Perón and then changed back after his government fell.
28
Silvia Bullrich (1915–1990), Argentine writer.